I am a former Councillor in South Liverpool and have also been leader of the Liverpool Lib Dem Group. I also work as a Lecturer at Edge Hill University.

Sunday, 2 December 2012

Off licence - another try on Garston Old Road.

UPDATE: The Council has now confirmed it will take objections and comments up to 23rd December.

People who live near the bit of Garston Old Road where it joins with Stormont Road may remember the battle around a year ago about whether or not that corner (with the empty shop premises) was going to be an off license.

I represented quite a few residents who were worried about alcohol being sold there. The problems were the closeness of the park, of Clarendon College (the Montessori School) and so on. There were worries about litter and parking and anti social behaviour more generally (we get reports every now and then of alcohol related asb in bits of the park)

Anyway, we managed to win the argument at the Council Licensing Committee but there was then an appeal to the magistrates. I was all primed to go and speak on behalf of local people when it all stopped because the applicant had passed away.

We thought that was the end of it.

However a new application's come in to sell alcohol there from 7 am to 11 pm 7 days a week.

Richard (Oglethorpe) and I have written to people living near the site to get views and to see if they again want us to argue against this proposal.

Our worries are the same as before.

And in fact following the Council's (misguided) decision to allow 24 hour alcohol sales from the petrol station by ASDA, it could be argued that the market is already over served.

If you did get one of our letters, do please let us have your thoughts.

You might also like to write directly to the Council yourself. The Council has a handy form which you can download from this page.

The deadline on the Council's website is given as 17th December. The deadline on the sign outside the premises is given as 23 December. This may be because of a delay putting the sign up but if you are commenting directly to the Council, our advice is to get your letter in before the 17th to be on the safe side.